Mistake
by Emily-maru
Summary: Neal gets arrested. For once it's not his fault.


Disclaimer: White Collar doesn't belong to me; no copyright infringement is intended.

Written for a prompt at The Collar Corner.

Thanks to **mam711** for beta reading.

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**Mistake**

Neal's day started with Peter's phone call telling him that he couldn't pick him up and to come to the small museum that had been robbed. Nothing big. Nothing really important or expensive was taken. The case would probably be closed in a few days.

When Neal got to the address Peter gave him, he couldn't get into the crime scene, because he wasn't an agent. His consultant badge didn't help at all. When he asked about Peter, he was told that he was still at FBI headquarters. Just great. So he called Peter, who told him to wait until he got there and to stop whining, which wasn't fair, because he wasn't whining. He may have expressed his dissatisfaction with the situation, but he most definitely wasn't whining.

So now all he had to do was to wait in front of a museum which was full of interesting things. And who knew how long it would take for Peter to get there.

But Neal wasn't the kind of person to sit down and wallow in self-pity. He was, after all, outside of his radius and he decided to take advantage of the situation and wander around a little. There was nothing really exciting in the area, but any unsupervised time outside his radius was welcome. He'd walked a few blocks away from the museum, when he suddenly saw a bunch of thugs who were obviously drunk. Way to start the day, Neal thought to himself.

Then they came closer and he could catch a few words from their conversation.

It sounded as if they were expressing their dissatisfaction with the police. He went a little closer.

"Let's go there and give 'em hell."

"The pigs won't know what hit 'em." It soon became obvious to Neal that they were talking about the police at the museum and that they were planning to cause a scene.

That didn't sound good. And it sounded even less good when he saw that two of the six guys had guns.

He had to do something before the day went terribly wrong.

He slipped past the drunken guys and hurried back to the museum. When he got there, Neal stepped up to the first officer he saw, but the cop held up a hand. "What do you think you're doing? You can't be here."

"I would just like to talk to whoever is in charge. Or you can talk to him. Just tell him that a bunch of drunk guys are about to come here to make a scene. There are six of them, and two of them are armed."

In that moment the thugs came around the corner shouting and one of them started to shoot. All hell broke loose. Everyone was suddenly shouting, running, and returning fire. Neal threw himself on the pavement. Then the police officer Neal had been talking to before shouted to someone, "He's got a tracker, he's a criminal, he's with them!" It took Neal about a second to realize that he was talking about him.

The next thing he knew he was being dragged to his feet. "No, you don't understand. This is a misunderstanding."

"Shut up!" He was being violently pushed against the wall.

"I'm an FBI consultant." He started to reach for his consultant badge. Bad move. A really bad move.

He heard someone shouting, "He's got a gun!" And the officer who'd pulled him up knocked his arm away from his jacket and struck him hard across the face. Neal leaned forward and before he had a chance to pull himself upright again, he felt an electric shock jolt through him. He shouted and fell. As he fell he hit the edge of the pavement with his head. After that all he could do was lay still as they cuffed his hands behind his back. They maneuvered him on the ground so they could pat him down

Two officers then dragged him over to the drunken thugs, who were now all cuffed and lying on the ground, and placed him on the pavement face down.

Neal just hoped that Peter would come soon.

####

Peter was annoyed. They'd rousted him out of bed very early, demanding that he come to the crime scene. Then another phone call followed, telling him that he had to head to the office before going to the museum, because the manager wasn't exactly cooperative. He was hesitant to hand over the security tapes, because he wasn't able to get ahold of the owner. So he demanded a warrant for them. It made Peter wonder what kind of idiot would call the police and then refuse to cooperate. And then, as if the day wasn't perfect enough, he got stuck in traffic.

By the time he finally got to the scene, all he could think of was a nice deviled ham sandwich. When he got out of the car, the scene he saw made him realize that that deviled ham was far away. It looked like the entire NYPD had turned up, and were riled up about something. He stepped to the closest cop and asked him what happened.

"A bunch of idiots marched in and started to shoot at the officers on scene."

He looked at the said thugs and … what the fuck? Was that Neal?

Neal was sitting on the pavement, propped against the police van with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was bleeding profusely from his nose and from what looked like a deep gash on his forehead. His eyes were half closed and he looked about ready to pass out. Next to him were some other guys who were also cuffed and a little worse for wear. One of them was currently being loaded into the van.

Peter quickly ran to Neal and crouched down next to him. "Neal, what happened? Are you all right?" He gently lifted Neal's chin so that he could examine the damage.

It took a moment for Neal to focus on him. Even when he did so, his gaze was somehow unfocused. Probably concussion, Peter thought to himself.

"Peter, thank God," Neal whispered.

"What happened?" Peter repeated.

"Got tasered and fell. Hit the pavement," Neal answered briefly.

"You what?" Peter took a deep breath and decided that it would be best if he talked with the police to sort out the mess. And he was determined to make the son of a bitch who did this to Neal suffer.

He stepped to the first person dressed in blue that he saw. He shoved his badge right at the kid's face and shouted: "What the hell happened to my consultant?"

The young cop looked at him with big scared eyes. "Sorry, sir?"

"Who is in charge here? I want to talk to him!" Peter was losing his patience.

"I am." A man with a dark mustache stepped to him and offered him his hand. "Officer Conner; how can I help you?"

Peter flashed his badge. "Special Agent Peter Burke."

The man was not impressed. "How can I help you, Agent?" the officer repeated.

"I would like to know what happened to my consultant." Peter angrily pointed in Neal's direction.

Conner looked at Neal with distaste. "He was with the thugs that attacked us. He resisted arrest."

Peter stared at him incredulously. He didn't know whether he should laugh or shout. "Neal Caffrey doesn't resist arrest. And he most definitely wouldn't join some random thugs to attack police."

Conner looked unconvinced. "He's a criminal."

Peter sighed. "Yes, he is. But he is not stupid. And he's a non-violent criminal. Look, this whole mess is one big giant mistake."

After Peter learned Neal's side of the story, it took him over half an hour to convince everyone that Neal was innocent. A few shouting matches, one phone call from Hughes and a few new gray hairs on his head later he was finally able to go get Neal.

Neal was sitting in the back of a police car. The other guys had already been taken to the police station, but Peter had made it very clear that Neal wasn't going anywhere until they sorted things out.

Peter opened the door for him and helped him out of the car. Neal looked slightly better now that someone had taken care of the wound on his head; he had stopped bleeding and he looked less out of it, but Peter still felt horrible for him. Just Neal's luck to get mixed up in something like this. He just wanted to get Neal to bed as soon as possible.

When Peter was sure that Neal was able to stand on his own he let go of his arm. Neal looked exhausted. "Can I go home?"

"We're going to the hospital first and if they tell you that you're good to go, then I'm taking you home." As much as Peter wanted to accommodate Neal's wishes, he was afraid to just leave him alone. Before he did that he had to make sure that Neal would be okay.

"Do I have to?" Neal asked with pleading eyes.

Peter didn't falter. "Yes, I want you checked for a concussion."

"Okay." The sole fact of how quickly Neal gave up showed how exhausted he was.

Peter helped him into the car, as Neal was barely able to stand upright on his own.

After they'd been driving for a while, Peter turned to Neal with a smirk. "So … Neal Caffrey resisting arrest."

"I think I'll stick to non-violent crimes," Neal mumbled with his eyes closed.

Peter cleared his throat and gave him a stern look.

Neal gave a tired half-smile. "It would probably be best if we end our conversation here."

Peter just smiled at that and shook his head in exasperation. "Yes, you're probably right."

The End

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Thanks for reading!

Reviews are welcome.


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